What are the advantages and disadvantages of each of these industrial lighting alternatives?

Fluorescent lighting: While fluorescent bulbs are more efficient than incandescent bulbs, they age rapidly, requiring frequent replacements. Their efficiency can also be dramatically affected by the temperature of their surroundings, and they often flicker, not outputting steady light.

Halogen lighting: Halogen lighting provides a solution to most of the problems with fluorescent bulbs in that it supplies vivid white light, ideal for outdoor use in places such as parking lots or walkways. However, the danger of halogen exists in the high heat output and fire hazard.

High Intensity Discharge (HID): HID lighting is common in large public places and can provide bright light, but its main fault relates to energy efficiency. HID bulbs require more energy and have shorter lives, requiring them to be replaced relatively frequently.

Metal halide (MH): MH lighting can be fairly efficient and long lived when compared to traditional light sources. Unfortunately, metal halide lamps take almost 4 minutes to ignite and are difficult to dispose of due to the mercury they contain.

What are the advantages of LEDs over these industrial lighting alternatives?

Lifespan: LED bulbs can function while using very little electricity, resulting in a relatively low heat output along with a much longer life span when compared to alternatives.

Size: LED bulbs can be very small in size, making them ideal for small or hard to reach locations.

Color: LEDs are available in a wide range of visible, infrared, and ultraviolet wavelengths, great for indoor and outdoor signs.

Durability: Because LEDs do not contain a filament like other options such as incandescent bulbs their durability is unmatched.

Efficiency: LED bulbs are more than four times as efficient and last up to 50 times longer than standard incandescent bulbs.

Cost-effective: Due to their efficiency, the savings in replacement hardware and labor costs alone allows the bulbs to pay for themselves.

Where can LEDs be used to replace traditional light bulbs?

In most cases LEDs can be a cost effective alternative to conventional lighting. LEDs can provide an extremely long life suitable for everything from parking garages and parking lots to canopies, retail stores, and gas stations.

How does LED lighting differ from other lighting alternatives?

The main difference is seen in the way LEDs produce light. In an incandescent lamp, a tungsten filament is heated by electric current until it glows while in a fluorescent lamp, an electric arc excites mercury atoms, which emit ultraviolet radiation that is then converted to visible light. In contrast, an LED consists of a chip of semiconducting material which is treated to create a positive-negative junction. When connected to a power source, current flows from the positive side to the negative side, and charge-carriers (electrons and electron holes) flow into the junction. When an electron meets a hole, it falls into a lower energy level, releasing energy in the form a photon and ultimately producing light.

How does the efficiency of LED lighting compare with that of other lighting alternatives?

In terms of LED energy efficiency, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, LED lighting has lower lumens per watt compared to linear fluorescent systems, but uses about half the total watts to provide the same amount of lighting.

What is the lifetime of LEDs?

The rated average working life of LED is 50,000 to 100,000 hours, up to 100 times that of incandescent bulbs.

Currently, lighting for outdoor areas such as parking garages and parking lots, streets, roadways, and pedestrian areas is dominated by two sources: metal halide (MH) and high-pressure sodium (HPS). However, recent advances in LED technology have resulted in a new option for outdoor lighting. LED lighting can provide the same amount of lighting as MH and HPS while using significantly less energy. LEDs also have a considerably longer life of 50,000 hours or more compared to the 15,000 to 35,000 hours of their alternatives, making them an ideal industrial lighting solution for hard to reach places. In addition, LEDs contain no mercury, lead, or other known disposal hazards, and they emit light to their full potential nearly instantaneously. LED technology is also improving at a very rapid rate in terms of luminous efficacy, color quality, optical design, thermal management, and cost when compared to MH and HPS technologies.

At this time, the quality of LED products can vary significantly among manufacturers. Thus, it is important to choose a reliable LED source. Electro-Matic Products, Inc. offers a High Light Series of low energy LED lighting with a 5 year warranty on our 50,000 hour LEDs. Electro-Matic will help you save time and money when it comes to your outdoor lighting needs.